Noorda made it go up, and he saw the beginnings of it going back down and that's when Schmidt was hired, probably in an attempt to turn the tide and avoid the inevitable victory of Microsoft over Novell. But Microsoft really had an unfair advantage and personally I do not think Novell ever had a realistic chance of staying in the race in the longer term.

He tried to bring it back but it was too late. Nothing he did could have mattered.